Unfortunate Predilections
by Trapped in Icy Flame
Summary: Chloe Sullivan had a thing for heroes. Luckily for her this hero has a thing for her too. Chloe/Oliver


Authors Note: Alright, so this is a very slight AU, by which I mean it goes along with generally what happened in the show, but I picked and chose what parts I wanted to admit existed and I came up with this pre-relationship Chloe/Oliver. It probably won't be continued, but, well, I might post the end that I cut off, as it seemed unnecessary. I hope you guys enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I might own Smallville, it might be somewhere in my room buried under mounds of clothes, books and trash, but I really really don't think it is. So I feel mostly confident when I say: I don't own Smallville, Please don't sue!

Unfortunate Predilections

Chloe Sullivan had a thing for heroes. She was drawn to them the way some people were drawn to willowy-blonds and bedroom eyes (God help her if the hero also happened to have those traits). First she gave her heart (and love, and devotion, and everything) to Clark Kent, the boy who would one day become Superman. Then she'd been charmed ever so briefly by The Flash. She'd had a short lived, clandestine affair with Bruce Wayne, and harbored an adoration for Aquaman. It was a shame heroes happened to have a thing for Lois Lane.

Now, just when she'd begun to think that maybe she'd cured herself of this unfortunate predilection, just when she was beginning to date Jimmy Olsen, a blessedly normal boy, with sweet eyes and a stumbling tongue. Just now she meets Mr. Queen, the notorious (yet beloved) Green Arrow.

She meets him, finally, through Martha Kent. Lana has told her of his cruelty (although Chloe cannot fault him for not liking Lex). Clark has told her to be careful, that he does not trust the new super power on the block (Chloe wonders, in the idle way she sometimes wonders, if Clark has always been this jaded, this reluctant to trust, and realizes to her horror that he probably has). Lois tells her that he is the first person she has ever run across who is as good at reading people as her little cousin. Nobody thinks to tell her how charming he is, which she feels constitutes a serious lapse of judgment.

Perhaps if she'd been prepared she would have been able to fend off her unfortunate attraction. It isn't likely, but it is something she can tell herself when she is feeling guilt and awful, for liking, and _wanting_ her cousin's boyfriend (it is like Lana and Clark all over again, except not as bad, because she'd loved Clark, and because Clark had been hers before he had been Lana's, she'd had a former claim which had never been acknowledged, but which existed nonetheless).

She first meets him when she walks easily into the Kent's home (it is like her home and she no longer even knocks), intent on searching Clark's room for something (she can no longer remember what it was, she no longer even cares). She walks past the living room where they sit, easily comfortable in deep armchairs, and discuss politics and policies. Martha Calls her back, her kind smile already gentle in her eyes and on her lips.

"Chloe!" Her voice was warm, and her face was open. "Clark isn't here right now; can I tell him you stopped by?" From anyone else Chloe would have considered it nothing more than a polite brush off, a 'get out of my house' covered up with manners, but with Mrs. Kent Chloe believed it to be nothing more than manners, because she would never consider kicking anyone out of her house (except for that one time, but that had been _Lex_, and well, it spoke for itself).

"Oh no Mrs. Kent I need to grab something for Clark, although why he couldn't just-" It was then that she noticed the stranger and cut her sentence off so quickly the words hovered in the air, incomplete and lonely. "Oh." It took her another second to gain her bearings.

"Hello", she offered neither her hand nor her name she was so busy being blinded by his beauty. He smiled, the slow grin creeping across his face, she'd thought him like the sun before, to beautiful and bright to look at straight on, but with the smile he surpassed her ability to explain. She'd thought she'd gotten used to beautiful men after all the time she'd spent with Clark (it was her curse, it seemed, to be surrounded by men prettier than she was, perhaps that was the real reason she was dating Jimmy, no one would doubt that she was more attractive than him, for all that he was as adorable as a puppy on Christmas), but it appeared she'd been wrong, because she was completely blindsided by him.

"Oliver Queen" his voice oozed charm in that unobtrusive and dangerous way. You didn't notice that he had wormed his way into your good graces until he was as firmly planted as a mountain and asking for favors. He didn't stand up, didn't offer his hand, and he didn't need to either.

Chloe flipped through her expansive mental rolodex. She smiled when she recognized the man from her cousin's rants. "You're the man that couldn't kiss my cousin" it was a little alarming that something so tactless had managed to slip from her mouth.

Luckily he laughed a deep, throaty laugh that filled the room and touched her bones. "That is not exactly how I would prefer to be defined, but yes, I suppose that description _would_ fit." Perhaps it was the laugh that charmed out Chloe's own easy grin.

"As much as I would love to stay and con you into an interview, I have to get back to playing a good little messenger girl." She turned on her back on the billionaire without a second thought and headed into the bedroom, where she would begin to wish she'd taken another glance at him so his face would be imprinted on her mind for dark, lonely nights.

The second time she saw him he approached her for an interview, and both she and her editors wondered how a junior reporter writing obituaries and with a habit of writing stories that could, if one was kind, be described as _odd_ had managed to wrangle an interview with all three of the elusive billionaire bachelors (although, had _their_ sources been correct Lex Luthor no longer qualified for the third title).

He'd invited her to his office n the clock tower, and expected her to be awed. She'd raised an eyebrow and sat straight-backed in his uncomfortable steel chairs. He hadn't expected a not-even-out-of-college journalist to ask questions designed to make him think, and found that he liked that she did. Five minutes into the interview he'd realized that he had to weigh his words. He'd set up a chess game before the interview and made the first move to give him time to think.

He also hadn't expected someone who could morph from cheerful girl to journalist quickly so smoothly that he hadn't noticed the shift as pleasantries began to probe deeper to play the worst game of chess he'd seen since he'd played an employee's thirteen year old son. She'd shrugged and answered his raised brow "I don't like the game, I was really little when I read Harry Potter the first time, and ever since then I haven't been able to get the image of the pieces smashing each other out of my head when I play, so I don't take any pieces, and do really badly."

He'd thought it utterly adorable and charming, and knew she'd be offended if he told her so, and restrained from telling Lois that night at dinner, because he knew she'd be offended too.

When the article came out it boasted a generous picture of his face and a slightly scathing review of his character, but he'd been caught from the first line "_There are those that say you can tell a lot about a person by the chairs he keeps in his home, and more from how he plays chess, so here is what I learned about Oliver Queen using those two meter sticks and more than a few questions." _Despite the fact that it was hardly complimentary and his publicist glared balefully at him whenever the article was brought up, he'd laughed and kept it.

They met again while she was playing the trusty sidekick to Clark Kent's Superman (although sometimes Clark wondered if perhaps for all his super powers he was nothing more than her sidekick, tagging along for muscle and protection). Oliver had been in costume, had been infuriating and insulting while insisting that he needed neither Clarks nor Chloe's help, because, after all, he was used to working alone.

She hadn't recognized him, even as Clark noticed her body swaying towards the sharp quirk of the lips. Clark had narrowed his eyes upon Oliver and contemplated what exactly the subtle body language meant before going back to his argument.

He got in Clark's way; Clark supposed that it was because they were both too alike. Too noble, too proud, and too stubborn to accept help from the other, and too obstinate to think of it as an option. It wasn't until their butting heads and carelessness got Chloe pushed from a rafter, with Clark too stunned to think before she had landed and broken a bone (he still insisted that it was Oliver who had actually bumped into her, but he wasn't sure, as he remembered the softness that was Chloe before the scream, and Oliver insisted that it had been him) that they had gotten together and gotten the job done before Clark had rushed her to a hospital that knew her by sight.

All of her medical bills were paid for when she went to check out.

It took two more accidental meetings before she recognized him. Clark had know, and had decided that she didn't need to be told (privacy, he said, she thought seriously about refusing to do his research "privacy" she would say with a smug grin). She figured it out after he'd "saved" her from the public official she'd been hoping would do something foolish and illegal.

She'd thanked him for his rescue, because it had been well intentioned, with a smile and a few words, but he'd gripped her arm tightly as she turned to leave (it was too late for the leading candidate for mayor to make a move on her, but not too late for her to catch up with him and follow him to see if he would find another woman).

"What did you think you were doing?" His voice was deep and mechanical, and she didn't recognize it. When she opened her mouth to protest he cut her off "That guy is a creep, and I know you have mace. You should have used it. How would Boy Scout and Lois feel if something happened to you?"

It hadn't been his mention of Clark that had set her off, she'd seen them interact before and heard his slightly derogatory nickname, but as far as Chloe could tell there was no reason that he should know who Lois was. Her eyes had sharpened on what was visible of his face, and had recognized the nose and slant of the mouth immediately.

She'd been shocked enough that it took her a second before she formulated a response "Listen here you green fetishist, where I come from we look Danger in the eye before we stab it in the ribs and steal its leather jacket. I knew what I was doing, I was going to break that story, and now, now I am not and some other girl is going to get attacked." She turned on her heel and marched away, mentally mourning another story that she would never be able to break. She'd walked distracted back to the Daily Planet, more out of habit than out of any real need to go back to work, and hadn't noticed him following behind her, making sure she got to where Oliver knew Clark would find her safely.

She'd confronted Clark, angry because it had hurt that he hadn't trusted her enough to tell her that secret. But she supposed Clark would never tell her everything he knew, and seeing him standing there awkwardly just made her sigh. She'd finally decided that there was no point in letting Oliver know that she knew his secret, and wished desperately that she had never found out, it had been nice to have a crush (awful, actually because he was Lois' and Chloe didn't poach, especially on her cousin's territory) on a normal boy, or a normal billionaire as the case may have been.

She'd considered telling Lois, before deciding that as much as she loved her cousin, she couldn't keep a secret to save her life, and she wouldn't be able to deal with having someone else put the world before her. Chloe had always thought it a bit selfish, but tried not to judge her cousin.

So, after resolving that there was really no one she needed to tell she knew, she'd gone home and eaten a pint of Ben and Jerry's, fully prepared to blame Oliver Queen for the weight she was sure to gain. Another story she could never, ever publish, because the world was worth more than her career. Another hero she could never have because he was in love with her cousin. Another secret she had to keep, another reason she would never have a relationship. She wasn't sure it was fair to blame Oliver for the fact that Jimmy had dumped her, she hadn't known Oliver's secret then, but it also wasn't fair to allow things like fairness and truth get in the way of therapy.

So when she'd seen Oliver at the Kent's the next week, a full pound and a half heavier than she had been the week before she'd simply walked up to him and told him she hated him before walking away and leaving Mrs. Kent to explain to a confused Oliver that Chloe had been going through a rough time lately.

Oliver had simply stared after her.

It was months later that she finally let him know that she knew. Clark had managed to get himself trapped in one of Lex's labs with far too much kryptonite, and she hadn't been able to get him out herself, though she had tried. So, she convinced the doorman to let her go up when she stared at him with tears that weren't a little bit fake dancing in her grey-green eyes.

Lois had been there with him, and she'd jumped up immediately and run over to her cousin, sure that something awful had happened (which it had), and Chloe needed to lean on her (which she didn't). Chloe had looked helplessly over her cousin's shoulder at Oliver, who noticed the plea and sent her cousin for the tissues in the other room.

As soon as Lois was out of earshot Chloe turned to Oliver, her luminous eyes threatening to overflow and in that second Oliver thought he would give her whatever it was she needed. "What is it?" his voice was gentle and he unconsciously moved towards her "What can I do?" In that moment Chloe Sullivan forgot that she 'hated' him, and even though he was very probably in love with her cousin, and her best friend was trapped in a lab with enough kryptonite to kill him, she fell in love with Oliver Queen.

"It's Clark" she gasped, shoving her new found feelings to the back of her mind "he's trapped in one of Lex's labs. You have to help him."

Oliver almost opened his mouth to ask why she thought a billionaire playboy would be able to help her but looked once more at her face and sighed before he turned to the returning Lois, and with a skill born of very expensive boarding schools and very boring board meetings maneuvered Lois into leaving his apartment. She'd be angry later, when she figured out what happened, but it was unavoidable.

Chloe opened her mouth to explain but he cut her off by walking past her to his wall and revealing the arsenal he had hidden there. He reached for a phone and dialed a few numbers quickly. "Hey Bart, I need you to get the guys and get over here, fast." He stayed on the line for another few seconds before smiling slightly and hanging up.

"I suppose I don't need to ask you how you found out." He didn't mention that Clark had promised not to tell anyone, and he was very nearly angry at him for breaking that promise, it wasn't Chloe's fault, and she still looked dangerously close to a breakdown.

"It wasn't Clark." Chloe had always been perceptive and had read the subtle signs of anger on his face. "He's the master of keeping secrets; he would never betray one, not even to me." She thought she did an admirable job of keeping the slight bitterness out of her voice, but Oliver's eyes sharpened on her face anyway. "I figured it out on my own."

He didn't have to ask her if she'd told anyone. "Tell me what happened." She sighed and did so, making sure to tell Oliver that Clark couldn't be around the green meteor rocks while dancing around the subject as to why he couldn't be around them. If Oliver noticed her verbal footwork he didn't say anything about it. Oliver rubbed his forehead and marveled that there were no lines in it yet.

"Alright, where is this lab again?" He hit a few keys on the computer he'd stashed with his bow, and a map of the city with the locations of suspected Lex warehouses highlighted. It only took Chloe a second to point to the one that had been highlighted on principle; the one they had felt least likely to be an actual lab.

"Hey boss man-" Bart cut himself when he saw Chloe before rushing over to her. "Chloe! How long has it been? Did you miss me? Be right back". Before Chloe had the chance to do more than glance at Oliver helplessly Bart was back with a dozen cheerful daisies clutched in his hand.

Chloe smiled and took the proffered daisies. "Did you pay for them this time?" Bart flushed and scuffed his toe on the floor.

"Sorta?" Chloe and Oliver both rolled their eyes. "So, what'd you need me for? And _why_ is Chloe here?" he glanced at her before adding hastily "Not that I am not always glad to see you of course."

"Of course" Chloe agreed amiably. "It's Clark." Bart's eyes suddenly lost their laughter.

"Is he okay?"

"We don't know." Oliver watched in slight amazement as Chloe conversed with one of his boys, and with more amazement when she greeted AC and Victor with the same easy friendliness when they arrived. All the boys had seemed genuinely pleased to see her, and only a little bit surprised. And had watched all their faces sharpen when she mentioned that Clark was in danger. It really was a small world he supposed.

"Alright boys, Luthor is at it again. Clark is trapped in one of his labs" he nodded at Chloe who immediately pulled up the schematics for the lab. "We're going to save Boy Scout" everyone present snorted at his nickname "and take out one of Lex's labs while we're at it." He proceeded to outline a plan both simple and brilliant before he turned to Chloe. "You'll stay here by the computer, Clark's told me you have a talent for computers and hacking, we may need it." He tossed her a headset "Keep this on."

She thought about arguing, insisting that she go with them, but knew there would be no point, and she would just hold them back, so instead she nodded before turning to Oliver. "Bring him back." He nodded grimly and she smiled lightly "Good luck boys."

They all gave her a smile and Bart told her in his typical, arrogant fashion "They won't need _luck_ Chloe, they have _me_." Everybody laughed before they left the apartment.

For lack of anything to do until they reached the compound at least Chloe went into Oliver's kitchen and busied herself putting her daisies in a vase and cleaning up (cleaning gave her a legitimate excuse to poke around), luckily Oliver kept his home fairly clean so she moved on into his bedroom soon enough. She'd barely had time to make his bed and put the flowers on his bedside table just to liven up the dreary room when Oliver's voice came through the headset she had attached to her ear.

"Watchtower we're here, can you disable the security system?"

"Of course Cary" She hit a few keys and then a few more.

"Cary?" She smiled as she continued to work on the security system.

"Cary Elwes, from Robin Hood: Men in tights" she heard the rest of the team chuckling as he groaned. "You're in."

"We are going to have to have a discussion about appropriate code names later Sidekick." He entered the compound with her laugh ringing in his ears.

Chloe was worried, about ten minutes into their mission they had cut off the feed to her headset, so she had nothing to do but pace and imagine the worst of all possible outcomes. She was halfway out the door when Oliver's strained voice came back through.

"We're on our way back, but it doesn't look good." His voice was strained enough that Chloe didn't press.

"Alright, I'll be here."

It was another fifteen minutes before they arrived, carrying a dangerously pale Clark. Oliver nodded at the other men and they left silently after they'd deposited Clark on his couch. Chloe gasped and rushed over to him falling gracelessly to the floor at his side. When she looked at Oliver there were tears in her eyes again but there was no reproach.

"He was like this when we found him. Chloe" he paused a second to fight through the guilt he couldn't help but feel. "I'm so sorry, but he's dead." Oliver was used to death, but Clark's hit him harder than he would have expected, and he could only imagine how much it would hurt Chloe. He walked over to her, attempting to provide her with at least some level of comfort. She looked at him again and he noticed for the first time tears actually falling.

"It wasn't your fault." She turned back to Clark and her tears fell in a steady stream on his face and neck before she buried her head on his chest. Oliver noted with alarm that Chloe was growing more and more pale, before noting also that Clark was getting less so. He reached out to take her shoulder as she turned ashen and she slumped lifelessly onto him.

Before he had time to wonder at it, or to grieve for the woman who was now lying dead in his arms he noticed Clark's fingers twitch once and then again before tightening into a fist and sitting up. He noticed Chloe in Oliver's arms looking pale and listened intently for her heartbeat, when he heard none he groaned.

"Not again." It struck Oliver that this was not exactly the response one would expect from someone who just came back from life and was looking at thee lifeless body of the woman who was supposed to be his best friend. It also struck Oliver that this was not how dying was supposed to go, and he wondered if maybe he had hit his head.

"Clark?"

"Yeah, sorry Oliver" it seemed then that Clark realized that Oliver likely had no idea what was going on. "Was I dead or unconscious?"

The distinction was very important Oliver realized, but he had been _sure_ that Clark was dead, and he told him so, but now Clark was awake, and it seemed like Chloe was dead, and he was still too shocked to be upset.

"It's okay Oliver, I'm sure I was dead, it's just, well Chloe can do certain things." Oliver nodded, that made sense, he'd met Chloe, she was a very capable girl. Clark sighed, it appeared he was going to have to explain things to the man who was desperately clutching the body of his best friend. He wondered if she would have bruises when she was no longer dead. He wondered how that worked.

"Okay, so you know how Bart can move really unnaturally fast?" Oliver nodded, he knew that Bart could do that, that was normal, kind of, what was not even kind of normal was coming back from the dead. "Well Chloe can heal, she kind of takes the pain or death on herself, which she assures me is very unpleasant, and then she heals herself, so she'll be okay in a day or so."

"So she's not dead?"

"No" Clark attempted to clarify "she is _dead_ she just won't be dead long."

"So I don't need to pay for a coffin and a funeral?"

"Why would you need to-" Clark cut himself off, it didn't really matter why Oliver thought that he would have to pay for the funeral. "No you don't, and moreover I think Chloe would kill you if you bought her a coffin, she's kind of been terrified of them since some crazy guy buried her alive when we were in high school." Oliver winced in sympathy, that did seem extremely unpleasant.

"What do we do with her?"

Clark sighed. "Well, the first time this happened she woke up in the morgue in one of those body refrigerators and was terrified, so that is definitely out. Normally though I bring her to my house and put her in the guest bed until she wakes up, but Lana's living there now, and Chloe doesn't want her to know. And Lois has been staying at Chloe's apartment." Clark frowned, not even considering the man in front of him whose grip on Chloe had gentled until he was almost cradling her.

"She can stay here." Clark looked up then.

"Are you sure Oliver? Because someone should really be there when she wakes up, she really hates to wake up alone, something happens when she's down, she won't talk about it but I think it really scares her."

"No problem Clark, I'll be there, and I'm sure you'll pop back up as soon as you hear she's awake again" Oliver reassured the man who was staring contemplatively at his best friend.

"Thanks, I should go get something to change her into. She won't be comfortable if she wakes up in that." He gestured to her tight pants and shirt.

"She can wear one of my shirts." Oliver offered, Chloe was small enough that one of his shirts would more than cover her. Clark nodded and Oliver went to go get one of his old sweatshirts and, for good measure, a pair of her cousin's socks.

Clark smiled gratefully and carried Chloe into the bed room so he could change her while protecting her privacy. Oliver felt a completely unexpected surge of jealousy and a not so unexpected on of protectiveness.

"I put her in your bed, I hope you don't mind, and her clothes are on the floor, I don't know how long it will be before she wakes up, it depends on how long I had been dead, and how dead I was."

Oliver opened his mouth to point out that dead was dead and there were hardly _levels_ of dead, but then remembered that Chloe was dead and was going to not be dead soon, and that Clark had been dead and was now not, and decided it was something that he would rather not think about.

"But it'll be at least a day, call me as soon as she wakes up _please_ we have to have a talk about her doing this." Oliver nodded and Clark left. He went in to look at Chloe, who looked pale and fragile in his too large sweatshirt and very large bed. He sighed before leaving the bed room and going to make coffee, he had a feeling that he was going to need it.

Chloe had been down for a little over a day when Lois walked into his apartment. "Hey Ollie" She greeted him with a large smile, the kind that no longer seemed quite as attractive to him as it had before.

"Lois" He rubbed his forehead absently and wished for coffee or a hurricane, he was tired and he needed to get Lois to out of his apartment before she stumbled across the dead body of her cousin lying in Oliver's bed.

"I was wondering if you'd seen Chloe. I just realized that the last time I'd seen her was when she came over here in tears. And that was more than a day ago. She's not picking up her phone and Clark says he hasn't seen her, so I'm starting to get worried."

Her eyes surveyed his apartment sharply, as though looking for some clue that Oliver was hiding her cousin. He was, but was offended that she would think it of him any way. He thought briefly about telling Lois the truth, before realizing that if Chloe wanted her to know she would have told her, and if Chloe hadn't told her about his midnight escapades it would hardly be fair for Oliver to reveal her cousin's new found Jesus ability.

"No. She was upset because, well, she didn't want to tell you this, but she couldn't afford rent. Someone stole her purse a few weeks ago and…" He trailed off and let Lois come to the conclusion he had not so delicately led her to.

"She should have told me. How much did you loan her, I'll pay you back." She was already rummaging in her too large bag for a check book when Oliver waved her off. He liked that she immediately believed that he had helped Chloe, he would have, of course, had she needed it, but there was no reason for Lois to know that he wouldn't have hesitated to give her any amount of money she needed.

"Its fine and you know it. I'd have given her the money just to make her stop crying." He remembered then that as close as she had looked to crying then she hadn't actually done it until she'd seen Clark lying there.

Lois smiled, a slow, sexy smile that once shot heat all through his body, but now did nothing more than perk his casual interest. "Well, let me pay you back some other way." She purred it, and started to waltz towards the bedroom. Oliver gulped. Lois was still one of the most beautiful women he had ever met; for all that he recently found his taste running to small blondes who couldn't seem to keep themselves out of danger. And then he realized that Lois was waltzing her way _towards the bedroom_.

"Lois, I actually-" He started walking towards her, but it was too late. The damage had already been done, she'd already taken the first step into his room and seen Chloe lying unmoving on the bed. Despite the fact that he was about to get into big trouble Oliver noticed with relief that color was beginning to seep back into Chloe's skin.

Lois took one look at her cousin before stepping quietly out of the room, and closing the door. She then whirled on Oliver, a slim body vibrating with anger.

"You haven't seen her? Would have given her the money to stop crying? But that isn't why you gave her the money is it? I never thought that my cousin would stoop so low. Or that you would." There were no tears in Lois' eyes which made it easier for Oliver to get angry in response. For his sake, and more than that, for the mere implication that Chloe would sell herself for money, and that he would buy it.

"You know me better than that. Or maybe you don't. But you sure as hell know her better than that. She wouldn't do that and even if she would I wouldn't let her do that with me." He glared at her, insulted.

"Then what is my baby cousin doing lying in your bed, and why the hell did you lie about seeing her?" Oliver ignored the fact that he had been an atheist since he could walk and thanked god that his parents had insisted on schools where young boys were taught to think fast.

"I'm sorry I lied. But she really didn't want you to know. She thought that you would overreact." Lois fumed, getting herself plenty ready to overreact.

"Well you are sure as hell going to tell me now." Oliver nodded, feigning reluctance.

"Its Clark" He didn't even get to finish his lie before she interrupted him.

"Of course it's Clark. Isn't it always Clark?" She paced "What did that stupid farm boy do this time? Am I going to have to kick his ass again?" Oliver didn't think that Lois had ever managed to kick Clark's ass, but wisely kept that comment to himself, as well as the one about just how amazing a couple she and Clark would make. It was, after all, not something you say to your boyfriend.

"They got into a fight, I don't know the details, but it was about Lana." Lois hissed, her face briefly contorted to resemble a cat.

"Of course it is squirrel girl. It always is." Oliver decided not to ask about the unflattering nickname.

"And, well, she needed to go someplace where Clark would never think to look for her, and she said it was here or Luthor Mansion, and I don't think Lex would be very kind if he found her sleeping in one of his guest rooms."

Lois nodded as her anger drained. "Well, I suppose you were just being a nice guy then. Sorry for jumping to conclusions. I guess I have to go kill Smallville now." Oliver nodded, but called out to her when she turned to leave.

"Lois? Are we good?" She smiled sadly at him before walking back.

"Do you know what I felt when I saw Chloe lying there? Under the anger and the hurt?" He shook his head. "Relief. Because now I had a reason to dump this perfect amazing man, who I had perfect amazing sex with. Because now it was his fault that it didn't work out, and it wasn't something I did wrong, something wrong with me. Because I've been feeling like something isn't right for a long time now, and if you had been cheating on me, it could have been that, and I could have hated you and broken up with you, and that would have been that. But now I can't hate you, and I know that you really are a great, wonderful, guy, and I can't believe that I am actually going to say this, but it isn't you, it's me. This just isn't working out. I'm so sorry Ollie." She gave him a sweet peck on the cheek before turning and actually leaving.

And for some reason, Oliver felt relieved too.

Before he went back into his bedroom to pull up the chair beside the bed and watch Chloe, he called Clark just to let him know what was coming.


End file.
